Air Traffic Controller Retirements Anticipated

By MATTHEW L. WALD

Published: December 22, 2004

The Federal Aviation Administration said on Tuesday that it would cope with a looming wave of retirements of air traffic controllers by overhauling its system for training replacements, improving its management to get by with fewer people and allowing some controllers to work beyond the mandatory retirement age.

Almost three-quarters of the country's 15,000 controllers will retire in the next 10 years, as they become eligible or as they turn 56, which is now the mandatory retirement age.

Most were hired as young people in the early 1980's, after President Ronald Reagan fired more than 10,000 controllers for going on strike. As a result, the agency has hardly hired any controllers in some years. In the 12 months that ended on Sept. 30, the agency hired 13, but beginning in 2006, it plans to hire more than 1,000 a year.

Marion C. Blakey, the administrator, promised that her agency would have ''the right number of controllers in the right place at the right time,'' and that as the retirements approached, she would hire some controllers in advance of need to maintain a balance of veteran controllers and trainees. Nevertheless, Ms. Blakey said, the total number will be up to 10 percent smaller than the number employed under a formula for staffing requirements that has been in use in recent years.

But John Carr, president of the controllers' union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said that many air traffic offices were already far below authorized staffing levels. For example, Mr. Carr said, the Chicago Terminal Radar Approach Control, which handles mostly low-altitude traffic, was authorized for 101 controllers but had only 66 fully qualified, and the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center, which handles higher-altitude flights, was authorized for 309 but had only 219.

Controllers complain that they face too much overtime and overly hectic workplaces. Mr. Carr said the shortage raised the possibility of air traffic delays.

He pointed out that the aviation agency's plan predicted that 686 controllers would retire or quit in the current fiscal year but that only 435 would be hired.

To train the new controllers, which usually takes many hours of mentoring by veterans, the agency said it would use simulators, now widely used by the airlines to train pilots. Officials said the change would allow the agency to qualify new controllers in two or three years, rather than the three to five that is now common.

But Mr. Carr said that the agency had yet to demonstrate that this could be done, and that there were limits to simulator training. Drawing a parallel to learning to fly by using a computer, he said, ''You don't want pilots in that airplane when their first time in that airplane is when they're flying you.''

Agency officials also said on Tuesday that to save labor, they would consider nightly closings of some airport towers and other traffic-control sites now open 24 hours a day. The union identified 48 sites under consideration, including Atlantic City; Albany; Syracuse; Bangor, Me.; Akron-Canton and Toledo, Ohio; Des Moines; El Paso; Manchester, N.H.; and Tucson.

Officials also said that they were paying closer attention to sick leave and workers compensation cases, to reduce absenteeism. And the agency will review how many controllers are needed at each radar center. ''We are going to see a reduction over what the agency in the past used as a staffing standard,'' Ms. Blakey said.

Reacting to the plan, Representative Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the House aviation subcommittee, said the plan missed an important point by excluding explanations of how much it would cost. Waiting until now to take action, Mr. DeFazio said in a statement, has ''already caused great delay and compounded the problem.''

But the aviation agency has been hamstrung in both controller training and equipment upgrades by budget problems. The agency's main source of revenue is a ticket tax, and its income has fallen as competition among the airlines has cut fares.

Ms. Blakey said she hoped to do more with less money. She said her agency used to spend $10,000 to determine if a candidate was well suited to be a controller but now did the job for $800. She added that because of better screening of new hires, the dropout rate at the agency's training academy was now 5 percent, down from more than 40 percent, which it has been historically. More drop out later, however, as they are trained at individual air traffic offices.

Ms. Blakey also said her agency would soon publish rules that would allow controllers to apply to work beyond their 56th birthdays, getting one-year exemptions until they reached 61. About 40 percent will apply, she said, but only about 15 percent will be approved. In their 50's, controllers get annual medical examinations.

Mr. Carr, in a conference call with reporters, said, ''The age 56 requirement was placed on this profession for very good reasons.'' He said that ''visual acuity, mental sharpness, ability to think in three dimensions, all of those things fall off as we get into our 40's and 50's.''

''Making controllers work older and sicker is really not the way you're going to bridge to the 21st century,'' he said.